On Humility

If we want to answer the question, how tall can the human species grow, then obviously it is well to pick out the ones who are already tallest and study them. If we want to know how fast a human being can run, then it is of no use to average out the speed of the population; it is far better to collect Olympic gold medal winners and see how well they can do. If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then I maintain that we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people. (Abraham Maslow)

I know that I am no saint, I am human. I try to accord my life with certain values; openness, tolerance and compassion. I try to live by simple ethical considerations to each and every situation, for example the principle that it is better to do no harm, than it is harming others by doing “good”. I know that I haven’t always succeeded, and I have lost count of the times I’ve failed. My contribution to human happiness is a drop in the ocean, but never-the-less it is there.

Perhaps being human is to understand humility with dignity and hope as Mei Rozavian Wenyi reminds us

In humility there is unconditional contentment. I cannot claim it, but it claims me. When it emerges it forms a lived experience, or a painting, and through it evokes a language we can relate to, if only in metaphor.

And, to me, metaphor only then becomes meaningfully rooted in the present, I feel it even as I hear and talk in words, but the subtle feeling is more than words, it’s a reaching out for the inexpressible.
Yet before we know it, It’s gone in a flash!